Lizz Murphy

THE BLUE COW
(Studio note 2)
The blue cow is a pyramid of glass terror and no-waste refugees and secrets They remain Their real purpose is being there The shackles of sound the bright orange prisons the jumpsuits of suspicion The danger in singing The/ creative view The flimsy codes The thin fracture of landscape The possessed The blue cow

Bush and the Blue Cow

1.

Those boys from Bush are back

bomb-making no-waste principles

turning them into solid pyramids of terror

2.

Refugees accused of a tale of secrets

remain in prison

their real purpose is being there

3.

Sound, curtains, backdrops

bright orange jumpsuits, shackles

call me suspicious

4.

Creative but in my view dangerous

They will return to sing the delights and decadence

of covert meetings, truths that are flimsy and thin

5.

Hidden codes fracture the landscape

the evidence on who possessed
this blue cow

Studio note 1

Selected a phrase from each of first 12 paragraphs (stopped when I got sick of it) from an arts column in today’s Canberra Times,
Alternated with selected phrase (or two) from each of first 12 paragraphs in an article The Weekend Australian. Manipulated to get Bush and the Blue Cow. Bashed the crap out of it to get The Blue Cow.

Cheers everyone, Lizz.

Studio note:

To link to Blue Cow pick two books from shelf with blue cover or content:

Colour by Victoria Finlay (go to the chapter Blue) and Watershed by Ticky Fullerton. Select a random line mid-page or by closing eyes, right hand pages only. Proved a little dull – select one blue covered book from floor: India. The word blue must appear somewhere (as part of a randomly selected line). Alternate lines (Colour, Watershed, India, Colour, Watershed, India). No manipulation (is there a copyright issue instead??).

Un-rules: ignore almost all punctuation because you usually do and you’re in a hurry; ditto automatic capitalisation (pewk)

Blue transcription 2

Blue Buddha

The ground suspended on straps

Who is losing from this process

Climb the southern minaret (women must be accompanied…

Copper and blood and I learned

A hotch potch and overall pretty light

Locks bookstands 18th century atonement slippers

Where the Buddha’s topknots came from

There has been a major changing of the guard

Chandeliers line the reception hall

A few lorries and a plastic bucket or two

To appreciate the seriousness

Partially open the street

Blue in the more mysterious reaches

Like bad skin on an old leg

The friendly and comfortable option

A fat middle-aged cherub

Lolls over a donkey

See Central Manali Map (p.294)

At prayer time he would’ve been beaten

Hard to be on the front foot of negotiations

Design has little influence

As hard as getting blood

Let’s face it economics is hopeless

3006 Amritsar-Howral Mail 297/833/1333

Studio note:

Make a list of piano roll titles 2. Make a list of texts as seen on television 3. Count the piano rolls (13) 4. Count the legs on this chair (4) 5. Move every 13th word in first list to the end of the text list 6. Repeat every 4th word in its equivalent position in the other list 7. Multiply piano rolls by chair legs (52) 8. Reduce to single digit (7) 9. Insert after every 7th word a word or phrase from every 7th page of Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism by John Gage 10. the word blue must appear somewhere or you have to go back to go 11. seek help reading own handwriting 12. untwist yourself from the chair legs 13. speaking of chair legs break line after every fourth word 14. that didn’t work very well at all — break chair 15. check for word ‘blue’ hope to go back to go 16. stuff it don’t get to go back to go - have to salvage it – play with tabs and layout 17. centre it and tab some more 17. post it no matter what 18. refuse to do any more no matter how OC one starts to feel about it

word roll is never your fault
other deconstructionists visual who is
he yes izzy space to cheap synthetic my wild
smell like a free re mind of mother
you me my obstacles to seeing
colour or a simmery day command performance summary
lead terracotta dun putty ko mo top ko
100 occasional and rather half-hearted lonely

flexirent
your blue

and an ideology of mystique thing
until you did the right had a theory
rainbow blue was seen as
akin to darkness clown
laugh laugh
Christmas cake hotline all the colours of the pearl
spectrum at crime sundown scene investigation pre-eminence
of light-dark Washington grays my journal
jawline was due to an attempt Vegas touch
real
master showgirl some of the most refined a
series of fresco portraits